A request for flexibility

Flexible working hours provide leeway for employees who have parental responsibilities of a child aged under six years.

Employees who are eligible for this can ask for a change of the number of hours they are contracted to work, a change in the time that these hours are to be worked, request a job-share where the hours they work are split with another person or request to not work over school holiday periods.

Any refusal to an employee's request for flexible working must be on grounds recognised and seen as legitimate and any refusal must be made in writing detailing exactly why the request has been denied.

An employer may only refuse an application under statutory provisions on the grounds of one or more of the following: the burden of additional costs; detrimental effect of ability to meet customer demand; inability to reorganise work among existing staff; inability to recruit additional staff; detrimental impact on quality; detrimental impact on performance; insufficiency of work during the periods the employee proposes to work; and planned structural changes.

An employer must try to accommodate an employee's request for flexible working if it is suitable and does not conflict with the provisions made above.

Fixed-term contracts are becoming increasingly popular with employers to provide cover for employees who may have an absence involving pregnancy or health issues. Employers are surprisingly unaware that employees on fixed-term contracts have exactly the same rights with regard to salary, pensions, holidays, training and sick leave as members of staff who are working for the company on a permanent basis. This has been since 1 October 2002.

Since 10 July 2002, if the fixed-term employee has been working for the company for four years, the law states that the contract of employment must be made permanent unless there is a justifiable reason for maintaining the employee's employment on a fixed-term basis. It is only in very few instances that this can be the case.

However, employers are afforded the right to balance the benefits of a fixed-term contract and can organise the contract of employment to include different terms and conditions, which might be a better wage package to compensate for the lack of another benefit, for example, reduced annual leave entitlement.